During the second half of 2016, rays of light began breaking through the two-year gloom and had a positive impact on the Calgary commercial real estate market, according to a new report by Barclay Street Real Estate.

Calgary commercial experts say local retailers are becoming increasingly savvy in their fight for market share, challenging the traditional brick-and-mortar concept of doing business in favour of a pop-up model.

During the fourth quarter of 2016, Beltline vacancy decreased by 1.8%% to end the year at 17.9%, says a new report by Barclay Street Real Estate. The quarter also experienced net positive absorption of 135,000 square feet, bringing full-year absorption to negative 41,000 square feet. Barclay says this is a significant improvement over 2015 when 429,000 square feet was returned to the market.

A growing sense of optimism that the worst of the economic downturn had past set in during the fourth quarter of 2016 as there was a number of large, full-floor lease and sublease activity near the end of the year in the Calgary downtown office market, according to a report by Barclay Street Real Estate.

To the end of September 2016, a total of $1.3 billion had been transacted in Calgary commercial real estate, nearly eclipsing the $1.5 billion invested in all of 2015, according to Barclay Street Real Estate.